Dear Pen Pal

by Heather Vogel Frederick

  By the time you read this I’ll probably be in college. My sister Courtney—our sister Courtney—is leaving for UCLA at the end of the summer. I wish she didn’t have to go. I wish things didn’t have to change.

  The thing is, I don’t like change very much. I didn’t want to leave California and move to Concord after Dad died. My dad, not yours. Your dad is Stanley Kinkaid. He’s a nice guy but I didn’t want Mom to marry him. I didn’t want a stepfather. I guess I was afraid our family wouldn’t ever be the same again. I guess I’m still afraid of that happening, especially now that they’re expecting you.

  Your new big sister,

  Cassidy

  Looking down at Chloe now, I can’t believe I actually wrote that. How could I ever have been afraid of this baby? She’s absolutely beautiful. Something wells up inside me as I sit there looking at how tiny and perfect she is. Something I’ve never felt before. A fierce, protective kind of love. I don’t want anything bad to happen to her. Ever. She yawns again, and I feel tears pricking my eyelids. It’s hard to believe that this little person was inside of my mother just a few hours ago and that now she’s out here, and I’m actually holding her. Mrs. Bergson is right, birth really is a miracle.

  “Oh, honey,” says my mother, putting the album down and looking over at me. Her eyes are filled with tears too. “I had no idea you felt this way! You don’t need to be afraid—just because we’re expanding our family doesn’t mean you’re being squeezed out. I’ll never, ever stop loving you! Haven’t you ever heard of ‘mother love’ mathematics?”

  I shake my head.

  “Mothers never divide, they only multiply! There’s always room for more love in a mother’s heart. You’ll understand someday.”

  I gaze down at Chloe, who’s drifted off to sleep, and stroke her soft little cheek with my fingertip. I think maybe I already understand.

  My mother reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear. “And don’t worry about Courtney going off to college, either,” she says softly. “Change is the nature of life, Cassidy. Some of it’s good, like new babies being born and children growing up and leaving home and all the new adventures that both of those things bring. And sometimes change is more difficult—like when your dad died. But it’s nothing to fear. Good or bad, when we rise up to meet it, change can make us stronger. It’s what moves us farther along down the road ahead.”

  The road ahead. Sometimes I wish I could see what the future has in store for me, and for my family. But at least I know one thing. At least I know now that I’m glad Chloe will be coming along with us.

  Emma

  “This summer I’m going to write and write and write and begin to be a great author.”

  —Daddy-Long-Legs

  A graveyard isn’t the first place that comes to mind when you think of romance.

  On a late Saturday afternoon in early June, though, with the smell of lilacs mingling with freshly-mown grass, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery isn’t bad at all. Especially if you’re walking hand-in-hand with Stewart Chadwick, like I am.

  “So are you looking forward to school getting out?” Stewart asks.

  “I guess,” I reply. And I am, really. I can’t believe I’m almost done with middle school, and that next year I’ll be in high school. I get nervous already just thinking about it. The only problem with school getting out is that once it does, Stewart will be heading to Maine for the summer. He got a job as a counselor-in-training at a boys’ camp. I won’t see him until Labor Day.

  “Hey, look!” says Stewart, pulling me off the path and onto the grass toward a nearby headstone. “Here’s a good one. Arethusa Beadle.”

  I take my notebook out of my pocket and jot it down. Since I’m still too young to get a real paying job this summer—I’m going to volunteer with Jess at the Concord Animal Shelter—and with no Stewart around to hang out with, I’ve decided that I’m going to use the time to write my first novel. Stewart is helping me pick out names for the characters. I got the idea from Daddy-Long-Legs, when Mrs. Lippett found Jerusha’s name on a tombstone. We’ve stumbled on some great ones—Ezra Nipp, Bunker Hopcott, and my favorite so far, Deliverance Severance.

  I have no idea what my novel is going to be about yet, but I figure this will get me off to a good start.

  We wander around for a while, and I stop by to say hello to Louisa May Alcott and Henry David Thoreau. All of Concord’s famous authors are buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Maybe I will be too, someday, but when I mention this to Stewart he pokes me in the ribs.

  “Quit being so morbid!” he protests, and chases me down off Author’s Ridge. We tumble onto the grass at the bottom, laughing, and lie there side by side for a while. Then we get up and brush ourselves off and continue our search.

  “Check this out,” says Stewart a few minutes later, sounding a little nervous. He steers me onto one of the cemetery’s many side paths and leads me toward a stone bench under a willow tree. Across from it is a particularly ornate gravestone carved with stone cherubs and willow branches.

  “Willow was a sign of mourning back in those days,” he tells me, which is one of the things I like about Stewart so much. He always knows such interesting things. Probably because he reads a lot, just like me.

  “Is that why it’s called ‘weeping willow’?” I ask, and he nods.

  We both peer at the gravestone’s fading letters, trying to decipher the epitaph. “‘Susannah Sugar,’” I read aloud. “‘Our beloved daughter’s life may have been short, but it was as sweet as her name.’

  “Oh, that’s so sad!” I exclaim, reaching for my notebook again. “And poetic. Look, she was the same age as me.” I copy down the name and epitaph and next to it I write “ghost?” Maybe my novel will end up being a mystery.

  It’s peaceful on the bench, with the willow’s trailing branches screening us from view. We sit there for a while listening to the distant sound of voices from up on the ridge—probably that flock of tourists we saw earlier hunting for Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grave.

  I check my watch. “I should get going,” I say reluctantly. “It’s nearly four.”

  Cassidy’s mom is coming home from the birthing center with Chloe tonight, and I need to be at Cassidy’s house in time for the surprise party. Since the baby arrived a little early and Mrs. Sloane-Kinkaid hadn’t had a chance to finish setting up the nursery, we all decided that the Mother-Daughter Book Club needed to step in. We’ve spent the last couple of evenings painting and sewing curtains—well, Megan did the curtains—and our moms and Gigi and Eva Bergson all chipped in for a really nice rocking chair, and we wrapped up a bunch of baby presents and piled them next to it, along with the stuff that’s been coming in the mail from fans of Cooking with Clementine.

  Stewart clears his throat. “Yeah, you should probably get going.”

  Neither of us makes a move to leave.

  “So when are you getting your contact lenses?” he asks after a minute or so.

  “Sometime this summer, I guess. I don’t think my mother’s made the appointment yet.”

  My parents promised that I could have contact lenses before I start high school next fall. Stewart got some last year when he started modeling. Sometimes he still wears his glasses—“for camouflage,” he jokes—but he isn’t today.

  “Do you think I’ll look good in them?” I ask him shyly.

  “Let me see,” he says, reaching over and taking off my glasses. He examines me seriously, then puts the glasses back on me. “I like you both ways.”

  I smile up at him. He smiles back. There’s an awkward pause, and then we both start to talk at the same time.

  “Emma—”

  “Stewart—”

  “Jinx!” I call out triumphantly, and instantly feel stupid. It wasn’t a real jinx because we didn’t say the same word. Stewart looks at me and smiles and keeps quiet anyway, though. That’s one of the things I really, really like about him. He never tries to make me feel dumb, or pounce on something I get a little bit
wrong and tease me, the way my brother might.

  Now I’m wishing I hadn’t said “jinx,” though, because I’m dying of curiosity to know what Stewart was going to say.

  I gaze down at the stone bench, tracing my finger over its surface. The cool smoothness of the marble is pocked by decades, maybe centuries, of raindrops. The wind whispers again in the willow branches. There’s absolutely nobody around.

  This is it, I think, my heart beating faster as I realize that Stewart planned this. That’s why he sounded nervous when he brought me here. I take my glasses off and tuck them in my pocket so I’m ready.

  Stewart leans toward me slightly. He smells good, like toothpaste and aftershave, or maybe it’s his deodorant because I’m not sure he shaves much yet. I lean toward him, too, and then he puts his arms around me and I’m nervous and embarrassed but thrilled that it’s finally happening, that he’s finally going to kiss me.

  I close my eyes and lift my face toward his, and the next thing I know I feel his lips—on my forehead.

  My forehead?

  “I’m going to miss you this summer, Emma,” he whispers.

  “Me too,” I whisper back, trying not to sound disappointed. A forehead kiss is almost a real kiss; it almost counts. I rest my cheek on his shoulder.

  We stay that way for a bit and then he clears his throat again. “I guess you’d better get going, huh?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stewart walks me back to where we left our bicycles. “I hope you have fun at your party,” he tells me. “And I guess I’ll see you Tuesday afternoon.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Tuesday is our last editorial meeting of the year—the last one for me forever at the Walden Woodsman. Next year we’ll both be working on the Alcott High paper.

  Stewart gives me another quick hug, then pedals off toward the gates to Sleepy Hollow. I follow him out onto Bedford Street and back down toward Monument Square. He gives me one final wave as he turns down Lowell Road, and I wave back and cut across the square toward downtown, and Cassidy’s house.

  As I ride along, I go over the last few minutes under the willow tree in my mind, wondering if I should have done something differently. Should I always wait for Stewart to make the first move, or should I just grab him and kiss him? Are there rules written down somewhere about this stuff? Probably. Maybe I should ask my mom. Or maybe not. Last time I asked her about private girl things, I wound up with a whole stack of books on my bed with embarrassing titles like You’re a Young Woman Now and Understanding Your Changing Body. Darcy got ahold of them and had a field day until Dad told him to cut it out.

  Bailey Jacobs and I have discussed this in our letters too, but she’s as clueless as I am. Maybe even more so, since she’s never had a boyfriend and I suppose that technically, Stewart is my boyfriend, kiss or no kiss. She says that with just twenty-seven kids at her school, and only a handful of boys her age, there’s not a whole lot to choose from. She’s hoping that next year, when she goes to high school in Laramie, things will change.

  For now, I guess I’ll just have to continue to be patient. It’s not like Stewart doesn’t want to kiss me, after all. I can tell that he does—just as much as I want to kiss him. It’s just that, silly as it seems, neither of us is quite brave enough yet to make the first move.

  A forehead kiss may not be the real thing, but it’s a step of progress at least.

  Consoled by this thought, I pedal as fast as I can down Main Street. As I turn down Walden, I almost run into Savannah Sinclair, who’s crossing the street to the post office with her arms full of packages and shopping bags.

  “Emma!” she yells, as I swerve past her.

  Reluctantly, I brake and pull over to the sidewalk, figuring she’s going to bawl me out or something.

  “Hey,” she says.

  “Hey.”

  “I heard that Clementine had her baby.”

  I nod, wondering what she wants. She doesn’t seem to be angry or anything.

  “Uh, do you have time to talk?”

  “I guess,” I reply cautiously.

  “It’s about Jess.”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “The thing is, I had no idea she liked your brother. Before I asked him to the dance, I mean.”

  “Yeah, right,” I mutter.

  “It’s the truth,” she replies. “How was I supposed to know?”

  “So why didn’t you uninvite him when she asked you to?”

  Savannah lifts a shoulder. Her eyes slide to the ground. “I don’t know. I was embarrassed, I guess. I’d already, uh, uninvited the guy I was originally supposed to go with.”

  “The blind date Peyton set up for you?”

  She nods.

  “That’s lame.” I tell her scornfully.

  Savannah sighs. “Look, I know! What I’m try to say is, I’m sorry I messed things up for her. It’s just—she won’t talk to me and—oh, I don’t know, forget it. She wouldn’t believe me anyway.” She takes one of the shopping bags and thrusts it at me. “Here. I got this for Pip. I hope he’s okay.”

  She turns and strides away, her long chestnut hair bouncing against her back. I watch her go, then hop back on my bike and pedal thoughtfully the last few blocks to Cassidy’s house. Leaning my bike against the front porch, I sprint up the steps and ring the doorbell. Courtney answers it and smiles when she sees me.

  “Hi, Emma,” she says. “Come on in. Cassidy will be home from baseball practice any second. Your friends are all up in her room.”

  I hear laughter down the hall in the kitchen. Our moms are all here, and the house smells good. We decided to have a potluck for our surprise welcome home party, and Mrs. Delaney made lasagna.

  Eva Bergson must be here already too, because Pip comes scampering out of the kitchen.

  “Hey, boy!” I cry, squatting down and holding out my arms. Pip flings himself at me, his little body wriggling with excitement. He’s always excited to see me, because usually it means he gets to go for a walk.

  “Sorry, Pip, not right now,” I tell him, burying my face in his fur. “Maybe after the party, okay?”

  He laps at my face in response, and I laugh. At least Pip isn’t shy about kissing me.

  He follows me upstairs to Cassidy’s room. Jess and Megan and Becca are sprawled around Cassidy’s room.

  “You’ll never guess who I just ran into—almost literally—downtown,” I say, picking Pip up and plopping him onto the bed.

  My friends look over at me and shrug.

  “Savannah,” I tell them. I hold out the shopping bag. “She gave me this to give to you,” I tell Jess. “It’s for Pip.”

  “Really?” Jess looks puzzled, but she opens the bag. “Hey, this is really cute.”

  It’s a pale blue collar and matching leash, with a black pawprint design running up and down the webbed material.

  “So what went wrong between you two, anyway?” asks Becca.

  Jess gives me a wary glance. “Uh, I don’t know,” she replies. “She just couldn’t help being—well, Savannah. You know.”

  “Maybe this is a peace offering,” says Megan. “She seemed pretty nice that weekend at your house.”

  Jess lifts a shoulder. “Maybe. It’s kind of too late for that, though. School finishes tomorrow.”

  The other thing about private schools? They get out a whole lot earlier than public schools. We still have two full weeks of school left at Walden.

  Before we can discuss this any further we hear the front door slam, followed by feet pounding up the stairs. Cassidy bursts into the room, her face a thundercloud.

  “I hate Zach Norton!” she cries, flinging her baseball mitt to the floor.

  “What are you talking about?” I tell her. “Since when?”

  “Since two minutes ago,” snarls Cassidy. “He’s a world-class creep!” She bends down to untie her sneakers, then rips them off and hurls them at her closet door.

  We all look at her, stunned.

  “What on earth happe
ned?” I ask her.

  Cassidy starts to pace. “We were riding our bikes home from practice, right?” she says. “We always ride home together. But today, instead of him going on down Stow to his house, he turns up Hubbard with me. I figure he wants to race, so I really kick it into high gear. He chases after me and follows me into our driveway. So then I get off my bike, and we’re talking like normal, and then all of a sudden he’s right in my face. It was like he was stealing second or something, he just dove at me! I thought maybe I had a wasp in my hair but then he goes and grabs me and kisses me!”

  We all stare at her as she wipes her sleeve vigorously across her lips.

  “It was just so gross!” she finishes angrily.

  Nobody says anything. Nobody knows what to say. Zach Norton kissed Cassidy? And then I start to laugh. I can’t help it—the irony is just so completely perfect. Of all the Mother-Daughter Book Club members to get the first kiss, Cassidy Sloane is the absolute last one I would have expected.

  Jess and Megan and Becca start to laugh too, but Megan and Becca’s laughter sounds strained. Probably because they both like Zach and would be on cloud nine right now if he’d tried to kiss them.

  “I didn’t know Zach liked you!” says Jess.

  “Of course he does,” Cassidy scoffs. “We’re teammates.”

  “Yeah, but you know what I mean.”

  Cassidy turns as red as her hair. “Why did he have to go and ruin a perfectly good friendship?” she yells. “He knows how much I hate all that gooshy stuff! How am I supposed to play baseball with him anymore? I’m never going to be able to face him again.”

  “So what did you tell him?” I ask.

  Cassidy snorts. “I didn’t tell him anything—I just threw my baseball mitt at him.”

  “You did what?” Megan looks shocked.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Cassidy says defiantly. “He startled me. Besides, he has no right lunging at me like that.” She scrambles to her feet and shoves her face close to Megan’s. Megan recoils in alarm. “See? It’s no fun.” A little smile tugs at the corner of her lips. “I think maybe he’s going to have a black eye. Serves him right.”